The Game
by Kantayra
Summary: Shikamaru and Neji face off in the long-awaited genius battle of the century...or maybe just because they're both extremely bored.


Disclaimer: I own not a thing, as usual.

Summary: Shikamaru and Neji face off in the long-awaited genius battle of the century...or maybe just because they're both extremely bored.

Author's Note: This was written for the Shikamaru/Neji/Shikamaru Fanday over in the shikanejishika comm on LiveJournal. Set in the future after Naruto becomes Hokage. Shikamaru/Neji if you're looking for it; friendship, if you're not.

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The Game  
by Kantayra

_Opening:_

Shikamaru sighed when he reached the Hokage's door to deliver his latest defensive tactics, only to find it barred. From inside, he could hear that the Hokage was engaging in his favorite pastime: arguing with his former teammates.

"You're such a cold-hearted bastard, you jerk—Ouch! _Sakura_…" Naruto whined loudly enough that he could probably be heard all across Konoha.

Some low-voiced muttering followed, and Shikamaru couldn't quite make out Sasuke's words, but it set Naruto off to screaming at him again, which in turn set Sakura off to screaming at them both. Shikamaru tuned them out; this was a familiar enough occurrence in the Hokage's office that even the most hardened gossip-hound had long since given up on eavesdropping on the former Team Seven.

Instead, Shikamaru turned to Neji, who was the ANBU posted at the door. Neji's shoulders were slumped a good two inches more than normal, and even through his mask, Shikamaru could see that he was about to pass out from boredom.

"They been at it long?" Shikamaru winced in sympathy.

"_Four_ hours," was Neji's strangled reply.

Shikamaru glanced down at the stack of papers in his arms. It was pretty important he got these signed, so that the new deployment plans could be set in motion on Monday. On the other hand, the Hokage could be quite a while whenever he and his advisors fought like this. Shikamaru could probably fit in a nap, some lunch, and maybe a game of shougi. He waffled for a moment, then cautiously asked, "How many people have come before me?"

"Forty-three," Neji answered calmly.

Their eyes met, and Shikamaru sighed. That meant that, as soon as the sounds of screaming from the Hokage's office stopped, the building would suddenly be _bombarded_ by shinobi making demands of the Hokage. Shikamaru did the calculations quickly in his head; he probably wasn't fast enough to get in line before place twenty or so, even if he suffered from a sudden, unexpected bout of motivation. That meant that he might not get in to see the Hokage until tomorrow.

"What a bother," Shikamaru sighed and set the files down next to the wall on the far side of the hallway from Neji and the Hokage's door. If he wanted to get in today, he had to wait.

Neji shrugged in a quiet sort of apology, and Shikamaru nodded in acknowledgement and slumped down to sit next to his files and wait.

Inside, Sakura was now screeching at the top of her lungs, "Will you two stop being immature brats for just _two minutes_?" The sound of wood cracking reverberated throughout the hallway.

Shikamaru winced. "For Konohamaru's sake, I hope that was the desk and not the window frame again." As Naruto's assistant, it was Konohamaru's job to arrange for the replacement of everything that became 'mysteriously damaged' in the office. Konohamaru kept a regular supply of desks at the ready, but structural damage required an entire work team.

"It was the window frame," Neji answered.

"Hmm…"

Awkward silence followed between the two of them, while inside the office the battle raged on. Shikamaru flipped open the top file just to have something to read. The problem was that he pretty much had his plans memorized, and about five minutes in, boredom overcame him once more.

He finally looked up to see Neji staring at him.

Neji's eyes quickly flitted off to the side, and he coughed in an embarrassed sort of way at being caught. Shikamaru wondered if he was blushing under that mask. It had become one of Naruto's favorite pranks lately to embarrass Neji in any way he could to try to get him to blush. Neji hadn't naturally been prone to blushing before, but Naruto's attempts were rather the equivalent of telling someone not to imagine a giant pink elephant; once it was mentioned, it was impossible _not_ to do it. As a result, lately Neji blushed at the drop of a hat.

Naruto had had such success with Neji that he'd then tried the technique on Sasuke. Sasuke had rolled his eyes and punched Naruto in the stomach. Naruto had just laughed in response and said that it was a good thing he hadn't tried his technique on Sakura first. Shikamaru might have been a genius, but even _he_ couldn't make sense of those three.

Shikamaru finally cleared his throat, in echo of Neji's cough, and began to reread the top file yet again. This time the silence was awkward even while he was reading, though. It felt weird to spend this much time with another person and not acknowledge their existence. Shikamaru shut the file with a snap and set it back down on the top of the pile.

He sat back, his hands pressed together in thought for a moment, before the perfect strategy presented itself to him.

"You know," he finally said with a smirk in Neji's direction, "I _could_ just burst in and get these signed right now."

Neji's shoulders stiffened slightly. He was _very_ serious about his job, and it was currently his sworn duty to keep any intruders out of the Hokage's office, under Naruto's strict – but somewhat ridiculous – orders. "You wouldn't dare," he accused.

Shikamaru's smirk widened. "Wouldn't I?" he retorted.

"It would be too much trouble," Neji concluded with a smirk. "You wouldn't bother yourself."

"That's probably true," Shikamaru shrugged. "But then again I do like strategy games…"

Neji's smirk wavered. "Attacking an ANBU is an act of treason."

"Who said I was going to attack you?" Shikamaru countered.

Neji tilted his head to the side, trying to figure out what exactly Shikamaru's game was. "I see," he said after a moment. He firmed up his defensive stance in front of the door.

Shikamaru's eyes narrowed in on his new opponent; the game was on.

--

_Middle Game:_

"It's not a smart idea, you know," Neji finally said, crossing his arms over his chest. As the challenged party, it was only fair that he got the opening move. His first tactic seemed to be, logically enough, a deflection tactic.

"Oh?" Shikamaru fixed him with a decisive look.

"About twenty minutes ago, I heard a Chidori go off in there. Then, a huge gust of wind blew out from underneath the door. And _then_ Sakura started hitting things and screaming." Neji concluded his speech with an arrogant quirk of his lips.

"Hmm," Shikamaru considered. He had little doubt that Neji was telling the truth. Everyone knew better than to get anywhere near the Hokage and his advisors while they were 'calmly discussing Konoha policy.' Everyone also knew never to say 'fighting like twelve-year-olds' instead of 'calmly discussing Konoha policy,' either, unless one wanted all that 'calm discussion' aimed directly at them. There was a serious risk of becoming a casualty to one of their wrath if Shikamaru just burst in. He was reminded of the incident not too long ago when Kiba had just narrowly avoided being accidentally Rasengan'ed through a wall. It was all very troublesome. "I guess I'll just wait out here, then," he shrugged it off.

That was his countermove: the bluff. Neji narrowed his eyes in suspicion as Shikamaru picked up another file and seemed to return to reading. Neji had great insight into the intentions and movements of his opponents, Shikamaru knew. He'd always been the quickest to pick up on Shikamaru's larger strategies the few times he'd been placed directly under Shikamaru's command, as well. It made him an invaluable ally. Shikamaru had never really tried him on as an opponent before, though.

"You do that," Neji finally answered coolly. His posture let Shikamaru know that he wasn't fooled in the slightest.

Shikamaru smiled to himself. That was the appropriate response to the failed bluff: the fortification of defenses. He'd planned for this, though, and it set him up perfectly for his next move: the sneak attack.

"I have to go to the can," Shikamaru sighed disinterestedly, rising back up to his feet with a stretch and a yawn. "Can you watch these papers for a minute?"

Neji scowled at the stack of folders across from him. Shikamaru saw him shift over to Byakugan as he studied the pile. Of course, Shikamaru had anticipated this eventuality. It was easy, really, since a tag set to release sleeping powder was the same general shape and consistency as the rest of the papers in the files. If Neji wanted to find the suspicious object, he'd have to check each paper, one-by-one, with his Byakugan. That would take far too long, since Shikamaru was pretending to need the bathroom and they were outwardly maintaining an appearance of decorum.

"Those are top secret documents," Neji finally said. "They're not supposed to leave your sight until the Hokage receives them."

A standard block, then, was Neji's countermove. Shikamaru nodded and, with a sigh, picked up the stack of papers. "I'll be right back. Don't let anyone else take my place in line."

Neji snorted at the likelihood of that, but beneath it he looked confused. That was the advantage of using a wild-card move: it put the opponent on the defensive because they knew there must be _some_ reason why that move had been made, but if done right, it was far too early in the game for the move's true reason to be deciphered.

Shikamaru headed off to the bathroom, his entire stack of papers in tow. He discreetly deactivated the sleeping tag as soon as he was inside. He'd hoped Neji would be smart enough not to fall for that trick, but it was always better to use the obvious attacks anyway, just in case luck was on his side that day.

Shikamaru always hated to win through luck, though. It was so boring.

He waited for a good five minutes, just to make Neji even more nervous, and then created three shadow clones. Shikamaru didn't have anything near Naruto's chakra level, but he'd been trained in shadow techniques since he was very young. Through efficiency of chakra, he could now divide himself four ways, with a little bit left over. It was more than most shinobi could manage, though, and he was pretty sure he had Neji outnumbered, even if Neji _did_ anticipate this move.

That little bit of left over chakra he put to a different use, just in case his first plan didn't work out. Shikamaru always liked to have an extra back-up plan for emergencies.

He'd duplicated the stack of files with the clones, and now one clone with a fake stack of papers returned to the hallway to sit across from Neji. Shikamaru and the other two clones dispersed for their strategy with the _real_ documents.

Shikamaru himself slipped down the side corridor to come around the back way, while Neji was distracted by Shikamaru's first clone. The second clone went up to the roof to try to attack the window from above.

Everything was set in place except that, as Shikamaru crept through the corridor, he suddenly found himself face-to-face with the immovable object that was Neji. There was no way Neji would have abandoned his post, so that meant…

"It's a battle of clone deployment now," Shikamaru grinned.

Neji chuckled behind his blank, white mask and slipped into an attack stance.

--

_Endgame:_

Shikamaru felt his clone that had been by the door 'poof' out of existence. The intelligence it brought with it, though, was enlightening. While the clone had received a critical blow, it had delivered one in return. Neji was only using water clones, it seemed. Since water clones used less chakra than shadow clones, Shikamaru conceded that Neji's numbers might match his.

Shikamaru shoved the files under one arm and formed the seals for his shadow-binding. Neji leapt nimbly back out the way, judging the distance Shikamaru's shadow was able to stretch to within a centimeter.

Shikamaru frowned as his shadow missed Neji by the tiniest amount. Neji crossed his arms over his chest smugly.

"Now what?" Neji challenged.

Shikamaru's frown turned into a smile. "My objective is to advance. Yours is to hold a defensive position." He took a deliberate step forward, and Neji had to skip backward to stay out of his shadow's range. "That means I have the advantage here."

"That's only true if I don't have any offensive techniques to stop your advance while you're still out of range," Neji countered.

"You're bluffing," Shikamaru countered smugly. "If you try the Eight Trigrams Empty Palm, you're going to destroy _something_, even if you manage to hit me in the process."

"So?" Neji shrugged. "I'll just tell the Hokage that the Uchiha did it."

"That's…diabolical." Shikamaru's eyes widened with newfound respect, and then he was suddenly dodging a very high-level chakra attack.

Files went flying through the air as Neji's blast took out the window at the end of the hallway. Some of those papers, unfortunately, hit the walls as they did so and vanished in small puffs of smoke.

Neji froze at the sight and then turned to run back to his post at the realization that the real Shikamaru was carrying a decoy, and thus one of the clones must have the real documents.

Shikamaru smirked and made the seals for his shadow-binding technique. Neji had been out of range when he'd fired his blast, and he was almost to the Hokage's door now, but the papers were still fluttering through the air, and they were all that Shikamaru needed.

His shadow bounced from the shadow of one paper to the next, all the way down the hallway, and caught Neji mere feet from the Hokage's door. Neji let out a little "urk" sound and tried to struggle, but he was trapped.

Up on the roof, Shikamaru felt another of the clone battles end, as his shadow returned to him. This one hadn't managed to take out Neji's water clone, though, which meant he was now outnumbered. That meant he only had a few seconds.

"Now!" he shouted out.

His third and final shadow clone, on cue, burst from the bathroom with the _real_ files and ran down the hallway toward the Hokage's door.

"You were hiding him in there all this time?" Neji gaped in disbelief.

"Come on…" Shikamaru whispered as his clone made for the door.

Further down the hall, Neji's spare water clone leapt in through an open window, saw the situation, and took off after Shikamaru's clone.

Shikamaru's clone got its hand on the doorknob and turned it, just as the shadow papers finally settled to the ground. Shikamaru no longer had the range to reach Neji, and his shadow-bind broke.

The real Neji and the Neji clone dove at the Shikamaru clone simultaneously from either side. The real Shikamaru ran to bridge the gap between them…

And Shikamaru's clone pushed at the knob and stepped into the Hokage's office.

--

_Checkmate:_

Neji and his clone collided with a spectacular splash of water just outside the door. Unfortunately, the water also meant that the floor was slippery. Shikamaru tried to stop in time, but he skidded on the wet linoleum and tripped right over Neji from behind. The impact resulted in Neji's ANBU mask being knocked clear off his face. The clattered down the hallway a good ten feet before coming to rest just outside the giant puddle of water.

Inside the Hokage's office, Shikamaru's clone held out his documents urgently. "Sign these, quick!"

The occupants of the Hokage's office froze in shock at the very bizarre sight they had just beheld. Not that the former Team Seven wasn't just as bizarre a sight: Naruto and Sasuke had somehow managed to each get other in a headlock simultaneously, and Sakura stood behind them with a broken wooden board from Naruto's desk high over her head, ready to clobber them both.

The two strange spectacles blinked at each other for a moment.

Then, Naruto said, "Jeez, you guys are _jounin_ now. Grow up, why don't you?"

To which, Sakura replied by finally hitting him and Sasuke over the head with the board. Everyone decided it was best to let the topic drop after that.

"So what's this about?" Naruto rubbed his head and took the papers from Shikamaru's clone.

Neji tried to squirm out from under Shikamaru to stop him, but Shikamaru caught him in an unbreakable bind and waited for his moment of victory.

"Oh, yeah. I've been waiting for these. Thanks, Shikamaru." He glanced back and forth between the two of them. "Uh…Shikamaru_s_."

Shikamaru felt the fight go out of Neji as Naruto signed the reports, and Shikamaru let him go. He released the shadow clone as well and stood shakily from the wet puddle of Neji to file the signed plans.

Neji was awaiting him when he emerged from the Hokage's office two minutes later, soaking wet, his arms crossed over his chest, and a sour expression on his face. He still hadn't put his mask back on.

"Uh… No hard feelings, right?" Shikamaru scratched the back of his head sheepishly. Behind the closed door, Sakura started screaming at Naruto and Sasuke again. Shikamaru suddenly felt a bit ridiculous; he liked to think that he was at least more mature than _those three_.

Neji tilted his head to the side in acknowledgement. "Good game," he agreed.

Shikamaru grinned. It actually _had_ been a pretty fun game. "We'll have to do it again some time," he agreed.

Neji blushed and looked pointedly away.

Shikamaru walked past him and then bent over to pick up the fallen ANBU mask. "Here," he offered in reconciliation.

Neji's eyes flickered over to him, and he blushed deeper as he took the mask. Their fingers brushed, and Shikamaru coughed and looked away in response.

"Another time," Neji agreed with a smirk as he pulled the mask back on. "It's a date."

A whole coughing fit overtook Shikamaru as he escaped down the hallway with his precious signed defense reports. His cheeks were flaming red. He realized a second too late that turning the corner hadn't saved him from Neji seeing him blush; after all, Neji could see through walls.

His horrified expression must have been pretty comical because he could hear Neji's rich chuckle down the hall. In the end, Shikamaru wasn't so sure he'd won, after all, because he all but _fled_ from the Hokage Tower in embarrassment.

"Troublesome," he finally muttered to himself once he was sure he was safely out of the Byakugan's range. There was a smile on his face, though.

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Just a random bit of fun. Feedback is always appreciated!


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